


Children of Ink and Fire

by maxsaystowrite



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Characters being sad, Gen, I just think they're friends, background relationships but nothing in the forefront., in this houses its Gerry Delano
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21861718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maxsaystowrite/pseuds/maxsaystowrite
Summary: Gerard Keay was born into this. So was Agnes Montague. They were cut from the same cloth. They were the only ones who could really get each other.
Relationships: Gerard Keay & Agnes Montague
Comments: 7
Kudos: 50





	Children of Ink and Fire

**Author's Note:**

> i just think they'd be frienddddds, sweet friends. And then, well, whats life without a little angst, right?
> 
> Also it's 98% canon-compliant. If everything else gets to go down in 2008, Agnes can live a few extra years.

When they first met, she was 22 and he was 13. His face was acne scared and had unfortunate proportions, even for a new teen. His fingers stained with bad black hair dye and badly painted with more black. And she was perfect. Her hair was a solid sheet of silky brown and her eyes trapped you even if she wasn’t looking at you. Gerry didn’t have any fear about meeting her. 13-year-olds think they own the world. Especially when they know exactly what this world is.

“Agnes Montague,” Gerry said. She was sitting, alone, on a bench in the middle of a park on a Tuesday. She does this every week. Gerry took pride in finding her, even if it wasn’t very hard.

She looked up at him and he almost bent under her gaze. Her eyes were a burning void like dark matter, absorbing all the light and giving it back as pure heat.

“I’m sorry,” Her voice cracked and flickered like a campfire. “I don’t know  _ your _ name.”

“And you wouldn’t,” Gerry said through a shrug. “I’m not a messiah or anything.”

There was an anger behind her eyes so suddenly. Gerry could feel the burn of her gaze now. The anger almost consumed the both of them before she swallowed it. Gerry grinned through it, enjoying the feeling of having knowledge over someone.

“Don’t be mad. I wouldn’t be able to keep a secret if my messiah came. I’d probably like to talk about it too.” Gerry said, thinking about how far Christianity has gotten in the past 1999 years.

“And who is your messiah?” Anges asked, carefully.

Gerry waved a pointed finger in the air as he sat down next to her.

“Smart! I heard you were smart,” He smiled at her. “I don’t have one. My mum she just… she likes  _ books _ .”

Anges rolled her eyes and groaned. “I hate hearing about that Norwegian.”

“Me  _ too _ !” Gerry groaned. “I’m Gerard, by the way, but I want to be Gerry to my friends.”

“Gerard?”

“Keay, yeah.”

“Alright.”

And they talked. Gerry mainly talked. He wanted to impress her. She was an avatar for an entity! He wanted to be her friend. She was important. She was cool. She was born this cool. 

“She's controlling in a way that's almost neglectful, you know?”

“No,” Agnes said. “My caretakers were… Different. They were over me 24/7 and then… Raymond… He was a different type of watcher…”

“Yeah, all the spider minions, I know. Creepy.”

“Don’t do that.” The anger and crackle came back into her voice with a flash.

“Do what?”

“‘I know this, I know that’” Her voice was mocking and high. “I don’t know anything about you. You don’t get to know me like this.” She was talking through a clenched jaw and her eyes were heavy again.

Gerry raised an eyebrow and straightened his back. “Alright. Then I’ll tell you everything about me. Like real friends do.”

“Friends?” Agnes repeated. She had just thrown a tantrum. A small one, but a tantrum still. Normally after her outbursts, she'd be sent away to be alone.  _ "I can't deal with this now, Agnes"  _ she'd hear.  _ "I have more important things to deal with."  _ But Gerry said,  _ friends. _

He then realized he never really said his intentions out loud. “Yeah. I’ll be your best friend if you’ll be mine.”

Agnes breathed lightly and Gerry could see every thought with every twitch. Her face would seem blank to anyone else. Someone who didn't know how to read people would say she was staring off into space. But he noticed every tiny bite of her lip and narrowing of her eyes. He noticed her. 

“Okay… I’ll be your friend,” she said after a long pause. 

Gerry grinned. “Wicked,” Gerry raised his hand for a high five. She just looked at it. “What?”

“I’m hot to the touch, Gerry. I’ll melt your skin off.” She said simply.

Gerry curled back quickly. “I  _ didn’t _ know that.”

“Side effect of the lightless flame.” She said. Agnes looked down at her hands, eyes shifting between hers and Gerry's they looked the same. But she knew better. “Only people who can touch my skin are others like me.”

“So… You’ve never had a hug or anything? Not a handshake?”

She shook her head and Gerry went quiet.

“Okay, well, I need to go. I’m… I’ve got to talk to my mum. I’ll see you next week.” Gerry stood quickly and ran away, waving as he left her behind. 

“Next week?” Agnes questioned.

And as promised, Agnes was not alone the next Tuesday. Or the Tuesday after that. Gerry didn’t come around every single week but he came close. He took holidays and had limited time during the brief periods where Mary, Gerry’s mother, decided to try Public School again. But he made sure to tell her if he knew that he couldn't. If anything, he'd apologize profusely when he did see her again. 

Gerry would be 14, and Agnes would be 22. His hair, longer now, but still dyed jet black and her hair was still long and thick. Gerry would be 17 and Agnes would be 22. He'd grown taller, her height for a moment, then taller than her. Gerry would be 19 and Agnes would be 22. Gerry would ask if they should be meeting in bars from now on, Agnes said she'd make the place explode just by stepping in. 

Some times, Gerry would make it to the bench first. She’d watch him before disturbing. A cigarette was always hanging out of his mouth these days, and with his lighter, he would play a game with himself. Agnes was never quite sure why. But she’d always find him with his palm directly over the flame. He watched his flesh and Agnes watched his reaction. He always ended up shaking his hand away before she came over.

“Aggie, you look as young as ever.” He said. She smiled a bit and sat with him.

“And you’re still aging. Haven’t you found a cause to pledge yourself to?” 

Gerry snorted and crossed his legs, hefting his heavy leather boot onto his knee. “Mum would call me a traitor,” He sucked down the rest of his cigarette and picked a new one from the pack. He offered one to Agnes. She declined but lit his with a squeeze of her fingertips. He always liked that party trick. “Right, lungs already on fire.” He breathed in again. “The only G-d I have to claim is Jurgen Leitner.”

They both groaned dramatically, then flashed fleeting smiles at each other.

“He doesn’t offer the same benefits of a traditional fear… I should unionize.”

They sat for a moment. Nothing but the burning of his cigarette to fill their ears. Even the squirrels in the trees wanted to be quiet for them.

“Do you fear anything Agnes?”

Agnes straightened her back and crossed her thumbs. Gerry watched her thoughts on her face. She was easy to read, especially after all these years. At least, on the surface. There was so much on her face.

“I’m not sure I know how to fear. I’m… I have a different relationship with fear… It feeds me. I have power in this world and fear comes from the powerless. So… no. Fear is food. You wouldn’t fear a bag of crisps, would you?”

Gerry hadn’t taken his mouth off his cigarette, even to exhale. Just feeling the continual burn.

“Guess not.” Smoke poured everywhere, surrounding them in a cloud. It enclosed them in their own personal world where the bright silence of the world that was not theirs faded away. 

“Why do you ask?”

Gerry shrugs. “Nothing really gets me, you know? Nothing gets my heart rate going. And to think someone might get off on it? No thanks.” 

“And you don’t feel afraid? With all the things you’ve seen?”

He shrugged again. “It’s hard to be afraid with the curtains drawn. Someone just needs to survive. And then you can just… break all this shit down. It’s the fear of pain, death, and losing something. And I don’t have anything to lose. Death? A break from it all. Pain?” Gerry flipped on his lighter and held it under his open palm. “Don’t really feel much too begin with.”

Agnes blinked. “Did you ask me just so you could monologue about your pain tolerance?”

Gerry flipped his lighter closed. “No, actually,” Gerry said, laughing and taking a drag. “I genuinely wanted to know. I know if you were just as blank as me.”

“Blank.” She repeated. 

“That’s the nice way to put it,” Gerry said, finishing off another cigarette.

“Is that what this is? We’re… blank?”

“We have to be, Aggie. Children aren’t supposed to be born into fear. We were born terrified and have never known safety. We were born in ink and fire and blood and fear and by G-d Aggie, that’s how we’re going to die.”

“Not if my ritual is completed… Not if we can bring-”

“There will be nothing left to burn. What will you have then?”

Agnes stood, abruptly. She was rarely the first one to leave and it took Gerry by surprise.

“I really do not want to talk about this anymore. I will see you next week.”

She left and Gerry didn’t watch her go. He wanted to feel miserable for once. He did, however, call out to her.

“We’ll be the same age soon, we'll have to celebrate our 22nd birthday.”

  
  


She didn’t answer him.

They made up, eventually. Sorrys were mumbled and explanations were given. Gerry explained his recent five into the rituals. He said they don’t make sense to him. The world is balanced. A ritual would ruin the world but also its destroyer. Agnes explained that she was a ritual and she was to have another. She explained that that was her life, her destiny. She didn’t appreciate him tear it all down.

_ “My life will have purpose and that purpose will not be undermined.” _

When Gerry was 21, Agnes was 22.

It was a slow day, spring and warm. The birds were lazy as they chirped, the bees hummed and flowers that bloomed. Hazy and clear, Gerry sat in a tank top, still his signature blank, but cooler. Agnes downed a sundress, showing more shoulder than Gerry had ever seen.

“Do you think we can love?” Anges asked.

Gerry raised an eyebrow. “We?”

“You know… Us… The… Blank ones?”

“Oh,” Gerry said, flicking his cigarette clean. He chewed on his lips and let the cigarette burn between his fingers. He suddenly remembered their last conversation. “I got a job recently-”

“Gerry-”

“I have a point, promise.” He looked at her and she nodded. “I got this job recently,” He looked at his fingers on his left hand and then showed them to her. “Gertrude Robinson came to me... Offered me a job… Apparently the eye is hereditary.”

She noticed then, the eyes tattooed on every single one of his joints. She could feel them looking at her. It was different than the spiders. The spiders had plausible deniability. These eyes, they were watching you and you knew.

“Mum hates Gertrude so much I guess I wanted to piss her off a little more cause I said yes. I knew who she was. I knew what  _ this _ was and I did it anyway. Signed away my soul to the beholding. Now, I’m an archival assistant for Gertrude Robinson, single-handedly undoing my entire life. Getting attached to a god, helping out my mum’s worst friend might as well throw the rest down the drain too.” He caught Agnes’ eye. “To love is to have something to lose. He would be so sweet to lose. He’s got this curly blonde hair and these impossible green eyes and is made of sunshine. Aggie if I could love I’d love him with everything I have.”

Her eyes had tears in them, another first.

“If?”

“He’s not like us, Agnes. He’s had an experience and he’s here, he's searching. Just one. He wasn’t born from flame or had Leitner children's books. And if he loves me that’s it for him. All he’ll have is this life and I can’t do that to him.”

“But can you love him, this want to protect him, isn’t that love?” Her voice broke. She sounded like she was begging. 

“I don’t know how to love, Aggie. I don’t even know how to  _ care _ half the time.” He took a long drag on his cigarette. “All I know is that I’ll go ape shit if anything happens to him. And I hate it. I hate having someone to lose.”   
  


Agnes whispered something under her breath. Something about him being gone. 

“Something is coming, Gerry. I can feel it.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“I don’t know if I can. I don’t know how to love either. I was never human.. His life is so quiet… so normal. I could never have that. But I might want that… I’ve never… I never wanted anything other than my purpose and I don’t know what I’m doing or feeling.”

“No one knows what they’re doing,” Gerry said, pulling out his pack of cigarettes.

“Can I have one?” Agnes asked.

Surprised, Gerry offered the pack with one hanging out of his mouth. She took it and lit it between her fingers. She inhaled desperately and held it in as long as possible. She didn’t cough as the smoke rolled out of her mouth. They ran through the pack together. They didn’t get up until they were uncomfortable. Agnes stood first.

“I should get going.”

Gerry stood too. “I gotta get back to work.”

Agnes gave him a weak smile before turning away.

“Aggie!” Gerry called and when she was facing him again, he wrapped his arms around her.

Their skin was touching. Agnes couldn’t tear her attention away from his cool skin on hers and how it felt. Lilacs and fresh mint. Something tingly and sweet and clean. She waited for him to pull away or scream or melt onto her. He did none of those things. He only hugged her tighter. And she hugged him back. She cried into his shoulder and hugged him so close. He smelled like cinnamon after all the smoke. 

Gerry broke the hug with a wide grin. She hadn’t seen him smile like that since he was a child. It faded quickly though as he pulled out his lighter, flipping it on under his palm.

“I’ll see you later, Agnes. My lunch break is over. I’ll see for our birthday. We’ll be 22.”

“Alright…” She said.

They would never be 22 together. They never saw each other again, in fact. Agnes kissed Jack Barnabas. A ritual failed. Agnes was found dead in her apartment. The world did not descend into eternal flame. 

Gerry cried when he read about the “suicide”.

Gerry walked into his childhood home and found his mother’s skin hanging to dry. Gerry was let out on bail, paid by Gertrude Robinson. His legal fees taken care of by The Magnus Institute. Gerry spent his 22nd in a flat that felt empty and cold. And he missed his lightless flame.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! If you liked this! I have so many other fics! I have 1 other TMA fic and I have 11 adventure zones! I also have a Good Omens fic, two Penumbra Podcast fics, Yuri!!! On Ice, Voltron, Miraculous Ladybug, RWBY, Gravity Falls, Star Wars, and Kingsmen fics! Go read those if you're interested! Thank you so much again!


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